[motomaverick]

Wow Parag, that's one marathon run from Mehsana and that too in the tallboy. Kudos to the car, driver and most importantly the passengers. Just a quick check on the cross winds on these multi-laned highways, how was the handling of the tallboy?

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by motomaverick

Just a quick check on the cross winds on these multi-laned highways, how was the handling of the tallboy?

Hi motomaverick, I have been driving the tallboy over highways since the past 7 years and 196,000 kms now. The boxy design is certainly not suitable for sporty driving to have some fun on the curves.

However, the straight line behavior is very much acceptable if driven sanely. My usual highway cruising speed has been 90-110kmph most of the times.

I have driven under extreme weather conditions bracing the cyclone for more than 4 hours that not only had downpouring rains but severe crosswinds as well.

The electronically powered speed sensitive steering mandates the driver to hold the steering wheel more firmly than any other car whenever facing such strong winds.

Apart from that, the alloys that I installed are of a wider size and positive offset meaning the track of my car is comparatively wider than the stock rims that may be playing a better role in handling such conditions.

Other than that, I have been mostly using the feature called common sense of understanding the limitations of a Tallboy and driving it safely all these years

I am sticking to this car for the practicality aspect of it plus the comfort that it has offered my parents over all those long drives not to forget the reliability of the car even when its nearing 2L kms on the ODO.

[advaitlele]

Kudos to you Parag, and your drive companions.
And what to say about the tallboy. He must've been your enthuastic partner in so many long drives as its evident from your log and odo reading.
Thanks for the wonderful log and photos.

I am perticular curous about the camera you mentioned. Where did you get it and how much does it cost? I would surely install it on my car if its available off the shelf here.

Keep more from the HW coming. Waiting for more. Rated 5* for obvious reasons.

[darbarz]

Parag, this is an amazing write-up & loving every bit of it. Kudos to you

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by advaitlele

I am perticular curous about the camera you mentioned. Where did you get it and how much does it cost? I would surely install it on my car if its available off the shelf here.

Advait, I picked it up in early 2011 from ebay for 3700 and spent another 1000 for a SD card.
However, you get these cheaper today and there are a lot of varieties.

What I have is a similar one with motion detect feature.

on dx.com (and Chinavision) these are available at very cheaper prices than ebay. I never looked for any particular brand when hunting for the DVR as I basically wanted it to record the drive with acceptable recording quality and it has been doing so since the past 2 years now.

http://dx.com/p/2-5-tft-lcd-1-4-cmos...0-degree-47144

I have a good number of Car-DVR videos from the GQ drive which I will share in the end as posting that involves compressing it suitable for uploading. More on that later.

[paragsachania]

Day 5: Varanasi-Kolkota-Kharagpur – 813 kms

(Note: The snap shot is of 2 calendar days since we had reached the final destination only after 12 midnight)

The manager of the Hotel was very courteous and was advising us the previous evening to visit the bank of the river Ganges for a holy dip and when we explained to him about our intentions for the drive was only to drive and not visit any attractions, he was left speechless.

Nevertheless, the world is so small as we learnt that he had graduated and earned a Degree in Hotel Management from Srinivasa College, Mangalore!

We wake up next day (May 09th) at ease after completing the much needed sleep after that endurance drive. We get ready, munch breakfast, finish the payment formalities, fill up the water bottles, load all luggage and are ready to continue. We also take the directions to easily reach the GQ and where exactly to refill Petrol. We start from the Hotel around 11:30am and refill at an IOCL station with 32.06 Liters of Petrol and reach the GQ in the next 20 minutes after crossing the mad city traffic.

Back onto the GQ around 12:15pm ready for the next leg and good roads greet us all over again:



This section of the highway was not very busy unlike what we experienced the previous evening between Kanpur till Varanasi. Hinted is that we will drive faster and cover good distance with ease.

In fact, this seemed more pleasant to drive and we were easily maintaining a steady 3 digit pace most of the times.







That’s the beauty of driving the length and breadth of your country.You can expect a assortment of landscapes wherever you are passing:



We are not tired or surprised to spot such mishaps anymore:


Under that hot summer sun, you have some shade below this bunch of trees


Elsewhere, you have travelers atop the transport buses facing the wrath of the hot sun:


This is the second Aurangabad that I am driving to after those very regular Bangalore-Aurangabad (MH) drives:


Human Powered goods carrier. I dread to think of their agony pushing the cart under the soaring sun:


Empty roads all the way. The road surface was good with both asphalt and concrete sections in between:


Another toll Plaza that we pass after Varanasi:


Grass Dwellings?



Our intended destination for the day is 457 Kms away but we have progressed very well today in the past 3+ hours


Somewhere close to Gaya:


Shops that were selling plastic containers in all shapes, sizes and colors


CHEAPEST MEAL DURING THE ENTIRE GQ DRIVE:

We stop at a very usual looking Dhaba somewhere after Gaya. We realize how hot it was only when we come out of the car. We could literally feel our cheeks burning. We enter this Dhaba which mostly had only truckers munching their lunch while a few of the Dhaba staff were busy cutting vegetables and onions.

We order 2 curries – Palak, Bhendi and we get a dry Potato curry as compliment. We are served super hot rotis and loads of onions. The staff realizes we are no truckers and also offers water in a clean disposable glass while the rest were sipping it from the usual steel glass. The cook goes on serving Rotis and extra curry by keeping an eye on our plates till we are satisfied and we request him that we are done.

2 curries and a complimentary dry Jeera Aloo , loads of onions, clean water and glasses, excellent service and when we ask for the bill, we hear him say “Bayaasi Rupaya ho gaya sahab” (Its 82 Rupees sir)!!

We reconfirm and he still says the same. It was a very emotional feeling as we begin to discuss what on earth could be his profit out of this? Seeing us arrive in car wearing sports shoes and shorts with sun glasses, he would have charged us more!!

I passed him a 100 Rupee note and asked him to keep the change. That’s the least I could do, Thanked him and moved ahead for the rest of the journey with wet eyes. I can never forget the bill amount and the way he told the bill was 82 bucks!

This was India on the GQ for me! My country with so much of diversity where Income disparity can surprise all of us like this sometimes!

We continue towards Dhanbad after this and face some harsh winds and rains too....More on that in the second half of day 5.

(Part 2 till Kharagpur....Continues....)

[rkg]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Day 5: Varanasi-Kolkota-Kharagpur – 813 kms

Grass Dwellings?
(Part 2 till Kharagpur....Continues....)

Hi!

They are not grass dwellings. It is straw (Paddy/wheat) stores like that. to be used for animal feeding later on

[paragsachania]

REMAINING LEG OF DAY 5 TILL KHARAGPUR

After traversing into Bihar we are now driving into the 8th state of Jharkhand.

The Barhi Toll Plaza.

Notice the wire and a device hanging on the left which is the Car DVR in action (All videos will be posted in the end).

Road condition is excellent and traffic manners too complement it. Very matured highway driving from what we experienced in both Bihar and Jharkhand all along NH2 and that includes private traffic also.


When these saplings grow up, the highway will look so Shady


They were indeed obeying it all along


The best part of driving along NH2 was that it was almost parallel to the Railway line of Delhi and Kolkota and we could see so many goods trains transporting coal.

After driving on some very flat sections, we get to see a few hills



Nearing Dhanbad, we stop for some Tea and also refuel 25.88 Liters of Petrol from a HPCL outlet.

The Sun Set on Day 5:


We do pass through some very thickly populated section of NH2 with loads of activity:



281 Kms more to our planned destination:


The skies were covered with thick dark clouds and it was getting windier too.

Before reaching Dhanbad, we witness rains and pass through certain sections of road which had witnessed the wrath already.



Closer to Dhanbad (at Gobindpur )we pull over to clean the windscreen before proceeding further:


Crossing the Jharkhand-WB Border:

We encounter traffic Jams at the border near a Bridge (due to check post I guess) and we follow the local private traffic on the wrong side and are out of the jam crossing the bridge in no time. This was our mantra at all the clogged borders.

The Durgapur Expressway and the Sand Truck menace:

Around 8pm we are on the Durgapur expressway, an excellent almost arrow straight, wide lane highway. The road surface was excellent and super smooth. We suddenly begin to encounter too many trucks and most of them looked similar hogging both the lanes. They were definitely not the typical long haul trucks as we noticed old tires hanging on the rear crash bar.

As we started to drive faster, we noticed that fine wet Sand was constantly sprayed on the windscreen and affecting visibility so much that the wiper-sprayer had to be used very frequently. No matter how many times we overtake the trucks, a few more appear ahead of us again making this a completely unpleasant experience. We may have overtaken at least 100+ trucks in a very short distance.

One of these Sand trucks:


A few neon signs from the Durgapur Expressway:



It is now mandatory to tag these Sand trucks as the most misbehaved lot on our highways. They don’t follow lane discipline, they are rude, and they have the least functional lights and more.

At the end of the expressway, we clear the windscreen with lots of water to get rid of the dirt left behind during our drive on the Durgapur expressway.

The unplanned visit (& mistake) of entering Kolkota city late at night:

Its 10:45pm and we start looking for some options to stay closer to the highway. Just then, my father suggests we enter the city and visit the Kalighat Temple and start next morning for Vizag. I oppose the plan strictly telling that it will hamper our start for the next day since getting out of the city in the morning back to the GQ will be painful and a time consuming affair and this is not a tourist trip that we planned.

After a lot of arguments, I agree to his wish and I call up a friend in Bangalore who hails from Kolkota. I ask him for a good place to stay near the temple. He calls me back after 5 minutes and suggests me a name called – Hotel Homely Raj (The name certainly doesn’t sound homely at all) but he insisted that recently his relatives had stayed there during a function and gave good feedback.

This Hotel was luckily available as a POI in MapMyIndia GPS and I start to follow the directions. We reach a horrible traffic mess with loads of trucks and inching pace.

It certainly wasn’t the Vivekananda Sethu which we later pass with ease paying a toll of Rs 10 IIRC.

We reach the Hotel which looked a bit shady and my cousin gets down to enquire about availability for Rooms. On learning that we are all males and from Bangalore, they decline.

We try similarly for at least 4 more hotels in the vicinity and are given the same answer that the rooms are not available.

Still struggling to find a room in Kolkata post midnight:


With no dinner and hunger at peak, I was finally frustrated and decided now matter we drive again all the way to Kharagpur or Cuttack, We first get out of this place.

(Later after a few months when my friend funkykar drove to Bhutan in his Palio with his better half, he too faced a lot of problems finding accommodation in the city and that is when I realized I wasn't the only one. Perhaps, Kolkatan BHPians should tell us why is it so difficult? I do understand that Kalighat area is infamous for whatever activities I was later told about but funkykar faced this issue in other parts of the city too)

We decide to drive out of the city straight to Kharagpur:

We feed the POI as Kharagpur into MMI and start driving back and again pass the Vivekananda Setu. We witness the same Jams we faced while entering and easily waste more than 45 minutes in inching traffic.

It is such a big relief to get onto the main highway and start gaining speeds after such horrendous decision to drive into Kolkata city at that time of the night..

Nearing Kolaghat, we spot a few buses stopped for Food and we pull over too. We all order some Rice and Daal and we loved relishing it for the hunger we had.


Drive Continues towards Kharagpur:

We finish our dinner around 2:00am and start to drive towards Kharagpur which was another 55kms away from our Dinner point. We reach the huge Golden Quadrilateral-East West Corridor Interchange around 2:30am and do find a hotel (Greenland) right beside the interchange but we continue to ignore that and instead drive into the city.

We keep driving through the main thoroughfares of Kharagpur and find no good hotels visible. We pull over, google search for a few Hotels and got a few names through Yahoo forums (Mostly posted by IITian parents) but neither googlemaps nor MMI is able to show that to us. We are having a tough time now and crawling in one of the bylanes (Malancha Road) till we find a Community hall named Prajapati Ghar (“Rooms also available”) with a security guard manning the gate killing mosquitoes.

(http://www.prajapatighar.com/picture.html)

Upon enquiring, he said that rooms are available and goes in and makes a call to the manager. We have a look at the rooms first and they looked very decent and the best part was that the room had Triple occupancy. We were surprised to hear the Rental of Rs 600 and additional 200 if we wanted to use the AC!!!

Without second thoughts, we fill up the form, submit our ID proof (which they wanted) , take a shower and settle for a good night’s sleep. Of course, we agreed to pay 200 more for using the AC as well.

Just when I was trying to sleep, I check my mobile on the location we were and upon zooming out, I realize we were too close to the famous “Kharagpur Railway Station”.


Since we are closer to the landmark, tomorrow’s plan is fixed that we make a visit to the Railway Station to see the world’s longest Railway Platform!!

(Witness the world's longest Platform and drive to Vizag.....Continues...)

[samarjitdhar]

At the outset, excellent write-up Parag. You have a wonderful free flowing style of writing which is not verbose but so effectively describes everything. I had followed your drive on HVK's forum but didn't realize you faced issues in getting accommodation in Kolkata. Any one of us should have been able to help you out.

Originally Posted by paragsachania

We suddenly begin to encounter too many trucks and most of them looked similar hogging both the lanes. They were definitely not the typical long haul trucks as we noticed old tires hanging on the rear crash bar.

This is something all of us have encountered specially when somebody tries to reach Kolkata late evening. I must have dodged the same number of trucks while driving back from Varanasi last year. There is no option but to dodge around these trucks continuously to make any progress. These local West Bengal truckers are extremely irritating and I found them the worst in terms of highway manners.

Originally Posted by paragsachania

(Later after a few months when my friend funkykar drove to Bhutan in his Palio with his better half, he too faced a lot of problems finding accommodation in the city and that is when I realized I wasn't the only one. Perhaps, Kolkatan BHPians should tell us why is it so difficult? I do understand that Kalighat area is infamous for whatever activities I was later told about but funkykar faced this issue in other parts of the city too)

Three males shouldn't have faced any issue. Actually the cops out here play a lot of unnecessary moral policing so the hotels are extra careful when it comes to couples. They demand to see some proof of marriage if its a couple. But I suspect it would be more to do with the budget hotels. A little upscale hotel should not have such issues. I am not sure but somebody might want to correct me but the hotels in the city center specially near Park Street should not have refused you guys. I can't say for sure as I have not tried staying in a hotel in Kolkata yet .

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Since we are closer to the landmark, tomorrow’s plan is fixed that we make a visit to the Railway Station to see the world’s longest Railway Platform!!

Earlier I had read that the platform at Kharagpur was Asia's longest. Wiki tells me its the world's second longest, the longest being the one in Gorakhpur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_platform#Longest. We have passed through Kharagpur by train so many times since we were a kid. As far as I recall two trains can stand back to back in that platform.

[lloydofcochin]

Good going Parag.

It was heartening to read about the cheapest meal of Rs.82/-. It shows that there are still ppl out there whose only motive is not money alone

It is strange to read about this Hotel conundrum in Kolkota. I think even in Delhi it is not an issue but why Kolkota? Maybe someone here can enlighten us on the same.

Eagerly waiting to hear about your visit to the India's 2nd longest Railway Platform at Kharagpur where MS Dhoni was once a TTE

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

At the outset, excellent write-up Parag. You have a wonderful free flowing style of writing which is not verbose but so effectively describes everything. I had followed your drive on HVK's forum but didn't realize you faced issues in getting accommodation in Kolkata. Any one of us should have been able to help you out.

Thanks Samarjit for your detailed comment. I straightaway went by the fact that the friend who hailed from Kolkata should be able to guide me to a good place and hence called him. Moreover, it was already around 11pm when I called him to enquire about the hotel and considered it wise not to disturb anyone else (and then, we had never planned any of our night halts which was the USP of this drive. It just happened on the go!)

This is something all of us have encountered specially when somebody tries to reach Kolkata late evening. I must have dodged the same number of trucks while driving back from Varanasi last year. There is no option but to dodge around these trucks continuously to make any progress. These local West Bengal truckers are extremely irritating and I found them the worst in terms of highway manners.

I agree with you word by word. To gain pace and progress we had no resort but to pass between these monsters zig zagging the lanes. This stretch towards Kolkata perhaps had the maximum concentration of Sand trucks at that time and yes, they were ruthless to say the least.

Three males shouldn't have faced any issue.

Hence I am too curious to know why we faced it. We may have enquired between 12:00am to 12:45am and everywhere upon learning 2 things (we are all males and from Bangalore), we were refused rooms.

Earlier I had read that the platform at Kharagpur was Asia's longest. Wiki tells me its the world's second longest, the longest being the one in Gorakhpur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_platform#Longest. We have passed through Kharagpur by train so many times since we were a kid. As far as I recall two trains can stand back to back in that platform.

Thanks Samarjit for the Info. In fact there is a huge board outside the Kharagpur railway station (As well as the platform) that says "Longest Platform in the World (1072.5m)".
There may have been many developments over the past few years that these records are easily broken (Like we have a few for Fastest Growing City, Fastest growing Locality, Busiest Highway etc etc ) but it certainly felt good to stand near the board and get clicked at least as a remembrance for our drive and the fact that we had entered into Kharagpur Town also!

[aniketi]

More than 6K in 7 days??? That also doing it alone (Driving). This is sheer madness. I must say this. It shows how passionate you are about driving. Also hats off to your father. He must be a very patient man with lots of courage. I enjoyed your writing & photos. Keep it coming.

BTW, just one question: Are you sure you paid something around less than 3k for food? Its very small amount now a days considering you were 3 people and must have had number of tea, breakfast, cold drink & meals on the go.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by aniketi

He must be a very patient man with lots of courage. I enjoyed your writing & photos. Keep it coming.

More than a patient man, he always accompanied me on various trips taken up in the past to Gujarat, Pune, Mumbai and Aurangabad. Its more due to his interest in travelling that he was able to manage this stint too.

BTW, just one question: Are you sure you paid something around less than 3k for food? Its very small amount now a days considering you were 3 people and must have had number of tea, breakfast, cold drink & meals on the go.

If you have gone through details of the first 5 days you may have noticed a the following:

Day 1: We only spent for Dinner as we started from Bangalore at 2:30pm

Day 2: We did not spend on food as we stayed in Pune in my Mother's place and the Lunch at Mumbai was a "treat" from a BHPian friend MX6. Further to this heavy meal at BTC, Sanpada, we only sipped tea and reached Mehsana late night and had dinner at home in another relative's place.

Day 3: We started late from Mehsana after Breakfast, ended up hunting for Fuel in Rajasthan, skipped lunch and sipped just tea and consumed the Theplas we carried and settled just for Dinner after Jaipur

Day 4: We never had breakfast (After visiting Taj) and settled for a heavy brunch near Etawah and hence skipped lunch. We only had dinner finally after checking in at Varanasi Hotel.

Day 5: We had breakfast at Varanasi Hotel, lunch in a Dhaba (Paid 80) and stopped for snacks again in Dhanbad again (paid 88) and then had our dinner at 2AM at Kolaghat paying 180 bucks.

(Day 6 & 7 details to come up in remaining leg of the Travelogue)

Hence, we have spent very less amount on food due to various circumstances that can be read from the earlier logs.

None of us smoked that usually mandates a stop for frequent tea and even if we stopped for tea, we would have done it at a normal tapri while refueling and spent less than 30 bucks all the times. Spending on Tea was not accounted as it was a very small amount and even if we may have done it 10 times in 7 days, the amount roughly converts to 300. Moreover, someone among the three of us would have paid that money from some loose change anyone would have had in our pocket then.

We had consumed cold drinks alone only once near Kanpur and every other time, it was mostly with the meal which is accounted anyways.

However, this is the complete break-up of what we spent on food and when:



I have similar details for around 190 Toll booths (and amount paid) also which came to 4074/- .

[paragsachania]

(This update to my Travelogue is for day 6 of the drive and is split into 2 parts - Visiting the Kharagpur Railway Station and the rest of the drive till Vizag)

Day 6:
Kharagpur - Vishakhapattanam ~ 805 Kms
Start time - 1:45pm
End time - 1:30am

It’s now a routine to reach our destination late in the night or early morning and manage with the mandatory sleep of 8-9 hours and subsequently wake up around 10:30-11:00am.

And we maintain this celebrated decorousness and wake up around the same time at Kharagpur on the 6th day too.

We get ready and after the payment formalities at the reception and walk with the luggage near the Tallboy which was writhing in pain due to the burning heat as a result of parking it under open sun in the parking area.

As I get into the driver’s seat to place a few essentials, I realized that the cabin was hotter as an oven and decided to roll down all the windows and let all the doors wide open.

You need a pressure wash once we are done boy!!


Directions to Kharagpur Railway station were easy as I could notice from my current location on Googlemaps that we proceeded to drive through the otherwise sleepy town which greeted us late on yesterday night. There were cycles in all types, forms and colors almost every road that we passed on our way to the railway station.

On one of the narrow lanes while driving towards the Station:


Almost everyone preferred to cycle here:


Yes, the weather outside harmonizes the graffiti on this tricycle:


A train that may have just departed from the Railway station:


The Kharagpur Railway station complex as seen from the parking lot:


Nice to read and now experience something that we only read in General Knowledge books in school:


Mandatory posing for evidence:


Another board right on the platform indicating the information explicitly


We then get onto the Passenger overbridge to get a glimpse of how long does the longest platform look in reality and captures these 2 images from either sides




The Midnapur Local ready to move in few minutes


We then get into the Food plaza at the Platform and decide to have lunch than start hunting for a place on the highway. Moreover, the Air-Conditioned environment was always a welcome change after eating in Dhabas over the past few days.

We order 3 Thalis and 2 Lassis and pictorially the serving looked Yummy:


Perhaps, the costliest meal of the entire drive on the GQ, it tasted very bad with absolutely bland flavor. Nevertheless, we had no option but to force it down through our throats.

Time to move on towards our destination for the day – Vizaganagaram.


(Rest of the drive to Vizag via Orissa continues.....)

[rabnawaz_b]

Great Travalogue Parag.. Can You give more details on DIY Armrest? Is it available online or custom made? Can I fit it on my Chevy Spark? sorry